


the resonance of smoke

by jesterwrites



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gabriel Lives, M/M, Sabriel - Freeform, cas isn't even in this sorry, oh well, sabriel is life tho, sabriel without side destiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 19:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5139848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterwrites/pseuds/jesterwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>doubt thou the stars are fire,<br/>doubt that the sun doth move,<br/>doubt truth to be a liar,<br/>but never doubt I love.</p>
<p>-shakespeare, ophelia</p>
            </blockquote>





	the resonance of smoke

There are hundreds of millions of possible outcomes to Sam Winchester's life. 

He knows this, perhaps better than anyone. 

Some end in blood- sometimes his own, sometimes not. Some end in hell, others heaven. Many end in pain, but sometimes it is lessened by love. Others still end the way it began, with his brother by his side. 

And some end in searching. 

\------------------------------------ 

It's been two days since the incident at Elysian Fields. 

"The rings of the Horsemen, huh?" 

Dean raises his eyebrows, glancing sideways at Sam. "We already got War's, and we nicked Famine's..." 

"That leaves Pestilence and Death," Sam finishes, taking his laptop and stowing it in the backseat of the car. 

"Collect all four," Dean jokes as he crosses over to the driver's side and gets in. Sam shakes his head and gets in as well. 

"It's the closest thing to a plan we've got," he murmurs absently. The engine turns over, the familiar purr filling in the silence as they drive down the road. Sam notices that there's a strange tension inside him now, and he's not sure why. It's the feeling he gets when he wakes up, knowing that he'd been dreaming but unable to remember what he had seen. There's nothing missing, because how can you miss what you never had? 

But he's emptier now than he was yesterday and he doesn't know what happened.   
He closes his eyes, and the light from the hazy, late-afternoon sun shutters through the trees across his eyelids, making patterns of brightness that make him dizzy. 

He thinks, for a moment, that he's looking at stars, staring straight at them, and they're blazing and flashing like fire. 

The car hits a pothole and Sam opens his eyes abruptly as Dean swears and smacks the wheel in frustration. That night, staying in a second-rate motel, he tries to sleep. As tired as he is, the morning finds him awake still, staring at the ceiling. 

\------------------------------------ 

The next day they head up north for a case. 

Seabrook, Maine is a small enough coastal town, made even smaller by the string of violent murder-suicides occurring over the past three weeks. Eight different people have snapped, killing friends, family members, and even random strangers. 

"Whatever this thing is, it's not picky," Dean states, shuffling through pages of printed articles and obits. "It's moving fast, too.... Any ideas?" 

Sam looks up from the newspaper he's reading (Possible blackmail, police are baffled) and shrugs lightly. "Could be a lot of things- a specter, a siren, maybe?" 

Dean nods, putting down the stack of papers. "Specter's not as likely, I mean, there's only so many people in a town like this and I doubt that they all have deep-seated, suppressed feelings of betrayal." 

"Siren it is, then," Sam says, leaning heavily back in his chair. "Let's kill the damn thing." 

\------------------------------------ 

"So, what'd it look like? To you, I mean," Dean asks, as they drive away four days later. Sam swallows hard but turns to look at his brother. 

"That waitress back in Tampa. You know, the brunette?" Sam replies, and he's lying through his teeth, but even as Dean laughs and thumps him on the back, he cannot help but remember the way his heart leapt when he saw honey-colored eyes and a mischievous smile- nor can he forget them. 

\-----------------------------------   
Another small town, another motel, another uneventful salt-and-burn. The day before leaving, Sam goes out under the pretense of a food run. Instead, he drives aimlessly around, wasting gas even though he knows Dean will kick his ass when he finds out ("Gas is expensive, Sammy, we drive enough as it is.") 

The sunlight flashes around him, too harsh and too bright, and he pulls over on the side of a dirt road. For a second, he could have sworn he saw gold, pure gold, not just the burn of the sun in his eyes.   
He opens his eyes, and Gabriel is sitting in the passenger seat. Startled, Sam jerks in his seat, frantically telling himself that he is, in fact, going insane, because Gabriel is dead, his vessel rotting on the floor of the banquet hall back in Illinois. 

Except maybe it isn't. 

Gabriel is leaning lazily against the door of the car, head resting on the window, eyes cast down to his hands, folded in his lap. His hair glints golden-brown in the light, and Sam can feel something tug at his heart as he realizes he wants to touch Gabriel, wants to make sure he's there. But Sam can't bring himself to reach out, because what if the angel-turned-trickster-turned-martyr is just a mirage, just another image burned into existence by the sunlight- a hopeless traveler's dying dream? 

But then Gabriel speaks. 

"Take a picture, Sam, it'll last longer," he quips, the mischief not gone from his voice, but there's something akin to fatigue heavy in his tone. 

"Gabriel," Sam manages. "I thought you were-" 

Gabe turns to look at him, eyes practically glowing that same rich honey color, and the words die in Sam's throat. 

"What is it you're forgetting, Sam? There's something missing, isn't there?" 

"I don't know," Sam whispers, half to himself. "God, I don't know." 

There's a sound that might be wind, might be leaves, might be feathers, and Gabriel's gone. 

\-----------------------------------

Sam watches the first half of his custom version of Casa Erotica 13 four times in a row before taking the disc out of his laptop and breaking it in half.

He tries to memorize Gabe's face, the way he talks, the way his eyes shine when he smiles, the way he gestures with his hands a little whenever he gets excited about what he's saying.

(Dean sees this, but he doesn't say a word.)

Sam feels so empty, and he hates not understanding why.

He still can't sleep, and he's begun to see shapes as he stares into the darkness of the motel room, shapes like wings and stars and ocean waves, but no matter how hard he tries, he can't conjure Gabriel from the darkness.

You need light for that, a little voice in the back of his head tells him.

\-----------------------------------

Their last night in Maine, Sam recalls, was the night he went to the beach. While Dean was off hustling pool and flirting recklessly with every girl in sight, he'd walked the three blocks from the motel to the shore. 

The sand was cool beneath him and gritty in his shoes, and when he looked up into the sky, he could tell that the stars would be shining beautifully if it weren't so cloudy. 

He'd sat in the sand, watching the quiet, lapping waves of the ocean as they slid up the shore and back out again, up and back, up and back, over and over until his vision was blurred from staring at the vague line of the horizon. He still wasn't sure how long it had been (minutes? hours?) before he stood, breaking his trance, and headed back up the beach.  
Dean stopped at the pharmacy the next day, and picked up some sleeping pills for his brother. 

Sam didn't touch the pills for three nights; he was still staring at the dark, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do.

\-----------------------------------

He finally takes the sleeping pills, washing them down with alcohol even though it's probably dangerous to do so. Dean's already asleep, face down and splayed like a starfish across his bed by the time Sam starts to feel drowsy and gets into his own bed, half-hoping that the pills won't work and he'll be able to keep watching the shadows. 

But Dean's made sure that they're strong enough to sedate a moose like Sam, and before long his eyes are slipping shut and he doesn't have the motivation to open them, so he just waits, complacent and dazed, for sleep to claim him. 

When he does, though, he dreams.

\-----------------------------------

He's at the beach.

He's at the beach, but this time he's standing and he's closer to the water, and when he looks up the sky is cloudless and he can see the stars, radiant and ethereal, spilling across the sky.

Sam steps forward to stand at the edge of the water, surrounded by stars. It is dark, and no one else is on the beach. He is alone at the edge of the world, and he calls out, desperately, because he's tired of being empty. He wants this to all amount to something, someone. 

In the dark, gold looks like a rough, muddied yellow, and that is the color Sam sees as Gabriel appears at his side. 

"There's nothing out there," the angel murmurs, toeing gently at the sand. 

"You were out there," Sam points out, but Gabriel doesn't reply, just closes his eyes and sighs up into the blue ocean dark.

"Y'know, I made some stars," he says thoughtfully, after a few long moments. "A few billion, if my memory serves. 'Course, most burned out eons ago."  
He turns to look up at Sam. 

"I'd show you, but what would the point be? I'm only what you're forgetting."

Sam knows that he can't close his eyes now, because when he opens them again his angel will be gone.  
Gabriel turns away, shoulders squared as if to spread the wings Sam knows he possesses but that the hunter cannot see.

"No," Sam says, and he reaches out to grab Gabriel's wrist. "I'm not going to forget you."

Gabriel tenses, makes as if he's going to fly away regardless of Sam's attempts to stop him, and Sam knows that this is his last chance, so he does the only thing he can think of.

He kisses Gabriel, a gentle press of lips on lips, and he feels the angel freeze, imagines those dark maple eyes widening, or maybe they're closing, because Gabriel hasn't pulled away yet. 

He kisses Gabriel but doesn't let go of his wrist, and he can feel the throb of his pulse, quick and defiant, against his fingers.

He kisses Gabriel, and the hole is still there and the hurt's not gone but now there's a maybe, now there's a what if, and that in itself is settling low and warm within him.

He kisses Gabriel and everything changes. 

"Sam," Gabriel whispers, when they separate at last, and Sam feels his heartbeat in his throat because the last surviving archangel, the holiest being in existence is saying his name- and it sounds like a prayer.  
The stars are all but washed out when Gabe looks up at him, golden eyes shining, and smiles, that beautiful, playful trickster smile.

"Gabriel," Sam murmurs, and he's finally found his voice. "Gabriel."

The angel shushes him with a soft, quick kiss and says, "Sleep, Sam, you need it."

"Don't go," Sam pleads. "Please."

Gabe brings a hand up to cup Sam's cheek and says, "I'll be there when you wake up."

"Promise?" asks Sam, and Gabriel grins and his hand moves to Sam's temple.

"Promise," he says, and Sam watches the stars fade into nothing.

\-----------------------------------

The light coming through the window is soft and golden. Rubbing his eyes, Sam sits up, trying to remember the past twelve hours. When he does, it comes in a rush, like a tidal wave of warmth washing over him.   
To his left, Dean is still semi-comatose in his bed, so Sam swings his legs over the side of the bed and stretches as he stands, feeling satisfied when his joints pop.

He's a little tired and a lot confused.

Gabriel's not dead. Or, maybe he is and I'm really not sleeping enough. Either way, last night I dreamt about kissing him.

With a frustrated sigh, he's about to sit back down on his bed and put his head in his hands, but his tantrum is interrupted by a knock at the door.

His heart leaps but his mind tells him that he's insane. He's dead, Sam, and you're crazy.

And part of him keeps saying that, even as he looks through the tiny hole in the door, even as he flings it open, even as the angel on his doorstep grins and says, "Heya, Sammy."

But then Gabriel kisses him, and he feels the warm brush of sunlight all around them.

\-----------------------------------

There are hundreds of millions of possible outcomes to Sam Winchester's life. He knows this, perhaps better than anyone. Sometimes his life will end in searching.  
But here and now? He knows it won't, because sometimes he finds what he's looking for.

the end


End file.
